Berren followed the thief-taker’s finger. Through the maze of tents, a posse of soldiers were weaving their way towards the castle. They weren’t wearing the purple of the king’s guard, the green of the men from Kalda, or the brown and black of the Mountain Panther.
‘Come on! Help me out!’ Syannis thrust a hand towards Berren. Berren pulled him out of the pit and then followed as Syannis ran to the palisade. They climbed up, ignoring the shouts of nearby soldiers. Down in the harbour two fat-bellied ships that hadn’t been there in the morning now wallowed in the water. If he squinted, Berren thought he could see longboats inching their way towards the shore.
‘Oi!’ There was an angry shout from below and behind them. ‘You two!’ A soldier was staring up, waving his fist. ‘What do you think you’re doing up there? Get down and get back to work!’
Berren hurried down and ran back towards the privies with Syannis hot behind him, hoping the soldier would ignore them, but he followed. ‘We were just-’ started the thief-taker, but the soldier stopped him with a glare.
‘I don’t care what you was just — you want to work, you work!’ He pointed at a patch of clear ground. ‘A new one. There. When you’ve done that, this one needs filling in and that one needs digging out. Looks like there’s going to be a lot of work for you two today, and you’d better put your backs into it if you don’t want to go home hungry.’
‘Ain’t you got enough shit holes?’ Berren laughed.
The soldier snorted. ‘Got another company shipping in, haven’t we?’ The sneer in his words was clear. Not his company. He snatched up a shovel and tossed it at Berren. ‘Dig, you oik! I’ll be watching you.’
Berren dug, and Syannis too. They looked up now and then, watching what was happening. The castle yard grew busier. More tents sprouted up. New soldiers began to arrive, these ones in grey with a black sword, point down, emblazoned on their tunics. Now and then Berren caught sight of an archer or two, with longbows as tall as a man slung over their shoulders. They walked tall and proud, with a swagger as though they expected everyone else to move aside for them. Later in the afternoon came an even more startling sight. Six men armoured in shining metal plates came striding by. Even the king’s guard stopped what they were doing to stare.
‘The Black Swords!’ whispered Syannis. ‘All of them!’
Berren shrugged.
‘That’s nearly a thousand men. They usually split into separate companies and fight in two or three places at once. They’ve got archers and a few men in that Dominion armour. Everyone else is afraid of them.’ He whistled softly and then grinned. ‘Talon must really have put the wind up Meridian. Good.’
‘Huh.’ To Berren the men in their metal skins looked slow and clumsy. Difficult for a man with a spear or a short sword to find a way through it all maybe, but what did that matter if you could simply stand back and throw rocks at them? He shrugged and went back to his digging. Maybe no one had enough rocks to wear them down?
Once it was too dark to work, the sergeant who’d hired them sent them away, each with a penny and a burned end of bread. Berren wrapped his in cloth and put it inside his shirt for later, for when his hands weren’t encrusted with other people’s shit.
‘Tomorrow?’ asked Syannis, but the sergeant shook his head.
‘I seen you two slacking off. Lazy. Got no place for lazy men here. Piss off and be glad you got paid.’ He turned and left.
Outside the castle Syannis idly threw his crust of bread away. Berren shook his head. ‘Duke’s boy,’ he muttered.
‘What?’
‘You come from where I come from, you wouldn’t throw away perfectly good food, that’s what. Old habits die hard.’
‘I’m not eating like this!’ The thief-taker raised his hands, every bit as filthy as Berren’s.
‘That’s because you don’t know what hungry is.’ Berren shook his head and looked away. ‘Bet you never have. Not once.’ This could be where they went their separate ways. He’d done what needed to be done. Things would never be the same between them, but he’d said his piece now. The hole was still there inside him, but he didn’t need the thief-taker any more. The itch was gone. ‘It’s all right. I don’t want to fight. It’s just funny, that’s all.’ He turned and started to walk away. There weren’t going to be any goodbyes.
‘Talon says you fought well,’ said Syannis. ‘What was it like?’
‘Bloody,’ muttered Berren. The fight on the beach still troubled him. Not because he’d been scared, which he had, but because in the fragments he remembered the strongest impression was of how much he’d liked it. And because of what he’d done afterwards to the old woman with the knife, while the buzz of it was still hot inside his head. Troubled him a lot when he thought about it, so mostly he didn’t. ‘I was too busy staying alive to notice much else. I expect I’d have a very different idea if I’d been watching from a distance.’
‘There’s going to be more. Berren?’
Berren paused. ‘Master?’ Even now the word came out with a will of its own. He could have punched himself.
‘I can’t do this without you. You’re right about Meridian. He’s here. I know a way to get close. But I have to deal with Aimes and so I need you. You have to do it. You have to get rid of Meridian.’
‘Me? No. You’ve got Hain for that.’ Berren turned away.
‘Hain?’ Syannis almost howled. ‘You think Hain could do something like this? No. But you could. There’s going to be a war, you see. A bloody one. Me and Talon against all the soldiers you saw in that castle. A lot of people will die. People like Tarn. Your friends. Kill Meridian, maybe you could stop it.’
Berren took a deep breath. ‘You want to stop it, don’t fight it,’ he said. ‘Let it go.’
‘You always wanted to learn swords. I gave that to you. What was it for?’
‘I don’t know any more,’ said Berren quietly. ‘It wasn’t for what happened in Deephaven, I know that.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Tasahre not to be dead, that’s what I want.’ To go back in time and make things different. Nothing that Master Sy could give. Yet he still didn’t walk away.
‘I gave you everything. Do I have to beg?’
‘It would help.’ I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t my war and I shouldn’t be fighting it. I should go home back to Deephaven. But back to what? Come on, there must be something. Some reason!
The next thing he knew, Syannis was in front of him down on his knees. The tension in his face was obvious, obvious how much he loathed what he was doing, but he was doing it anyway. ‘Please, Berren. Please help me. Just Meridian. Then do what you like.’
Berren bit his lip. This wasn’t the Master Sy he knew. Maybe what he’d done in Deephaven had changed him after all — maybe he really was sorry. ‘I’ll tell you what I want then,’ he said slowly. ‘There was a. . what’s your name for it? Bonds-maid? In the castle. She belongs to Princess Gelisya. I had to whip her, and all because she stood up for what she thought was right. I want her to go free. Not to be mine. Just to go free.’ There and then it was the only thing he could think of.
‘Very well. When she’s mine to give, she’s yours. I promise.’
‘No, I don’t want you to give her to me. I just want you to let her go.’
Syannis shrugged. ‘If that’s really what you want.’
‘It is. But you’d better do it. There’ll be hell between us if you don’t.’ Why did she matter so much? He barely knew her, but then this wasn’t about her at all. She was a symbol, that’s what. A way to redeem himself for Tasahre. And perhaps to redeem the thief-taker too. It was a strangely fierce thing inside him, a reason. A purpose. It had been a long time since he’d had one of those. He offered Master Sy his hand. ‘You’re not my master any more.’
‘I know.’
‘Fine then.’ He couldn’t look at the thief-taker. So fallen from what he’d been. An idol almost. Everything he’d aspired to be once, long ago as a foolish boy. And still the closest thing he’d ever had to a father. ‘Right then. Let’s go kill your king.’
‘Regent,’ murmured Syannis. ‘Not my king.’
They walked on down the road from the castle and into the town. The night-time streets were quiet and the market square was almost empty. A couple of soldiers lounged against a wall, pointedly ignoring a man taking a piss against someone’s door. Syannis led the way past them, along a narrow street between small houses jammed up together along the side of the river, until the road became a track and the houses became huts, and then the track narrowed even more to a path, steep and uneven, and the huts came to an end. Before long they were clambering between rocks, while the river hissed and splashed beside them. They took a moment to clean the worst of the muck off their hands and clothes. A half-moon was rising.
‘Doesn’t anyone ever keep watch down here?’ muttered Berren.
‘Tethis doesn’t have walls. No reason to watch the river. Well, none except the one that only Talon and Hain and I know about.’ Ahead of them, a hooting call broke the quiet. Syannis stopped. ‘That’s Hain.’
Berren thought it sounded like a night bird, but since he’d been born and raised in a city, he supposed he didn’t know too much about birds. Apart from seagulls, he thought sourly. Syannis set off again. Long grass and brambles tore at Berren’s boots as he followed. The second time they stopped, Berren looked up. The top of the slope was maybe a dozen men standing on each others’ shoulders above him, steep enough that a man would need his wits and both his hands free to climb it. He could just about make out the low castle wall that overlooked the gorge. The river was below them now, rushing and hissing. Its foam glinted in the moonlight. Another bird call hooted out, and this time they were close. Syannis eased his way between two tall thorn bushes and Berren followed. Behind the bushes was a hollow. It was so dark that Berren didn’t see Hain until the thief-taker’s squire spoke.
‘All here,’ breathed Hain.
‘You found it then?’
‘I could find it with my eyes closed.’
‘Lamp?’
Hain reached down and lifted something. A dim light lit the floor of the hollow. Berren could see their boots. He could see that the hollow turned into a small hole in the side of the gorge. Large enough to crawl through. A cave.
‘Muffle it!’ hissed Syannis, and the light went out.
‘Everything’s inside.’
‘Berren, follow me. Hands and knees into the cave. Hain, you take the rear.’ In the darkness Berren barely saw Syannis drop to a crawl. He did as he was told and followed into the hillside. He couldn’t see a thing, but then after a yard or two he felt space grow around him. Master Sy’s hand fumbled at his shoulder and pulled him up, and then Hain was in as well. He unshuttered the lantern, and Berren could see the cave. It wasn’t a big one, but large enough for half a dozen men to hide inside. At the far end was another tunnel, vanishing into darkness, old and rough hewn, and barring the tunnel was an iron grille. From the looks of it, it had rusted fast years ago.
His feet touched something. He looked down. On the floor were their swords and their armour, everything they’d left outside the city in the morning.
‘You must be joking,’ he said.
Syannis jingled a set of keys. ‘Don’t get dressed, lad, not yet. Just pick up your stuff and carry it.’
‘You’re not going to get through that!’ Berren picked up his sword. He waited, watching.
The thief-taker jingled his keys again. ‘It’s been a dozen years and more since I was last inside these walls,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s hope the locks are still the same as they were and that they haven’t rusted as solid as they appear.’ He put a key in the lock. It turned easily and the grille opened without a sound. ‘Oh, look! Fancy that!’
‘But that doesn’t look like it’s been used for years!’ Berren squinted at the gate as he passed through. The rust was ancient. The lock should have welded itself solid by now. His head snapped up, peering into the darkness of the tunnel ahead. ‘If they still use it, why isn’t it guarded?’
‘They don’t,’ hissed Syannis. ‘They don’t know it’s there.’
‘Well someone must-’
‘Me, you dolt! Me and Hain! What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two months? While you and Talon were living the lives of princes in Kalda, I was here, squatting in flophouses, camping in the woods, digging holes for my own shit and eating bark! Turning those lancers so they were taking my coin instead of Meridian’s. And while I was at that, Hain was here, hours and hours, night after night, picking at that lock, working it loose again for the day we’d need it. And no, Meridian really doesn’t know it’s here. You’ll see why in a moment.’
They rounded a corner and the tunnel opened into another cave, larger than the first. The light from Hain’s lantern gleamed off a wide pool of water.
‘It’s a sump,’ said Syannis. He pointed across the pool. ‘Swim down under the water there, you’ll find a tunnel. It’s narrow. Like the way in. It’s not long though. Just a yard and then you’ll come up into another pool. That’s where the Pit is. We used to drain the tunnels every few months to keep the water down. It was our secret way out. By the time Meridian took the castle, it must have flooded again.’
‘What’s the Pit?’
‘There are many more caves in these cliffs. When you get out of the pool, there’s another tunnel. Wide enough that you can put your sword on before you go through it, and I suggest you do. It’s steep and goes up about twice the height of a man. The Pit? People get thrown in it. People Meridian doesn’t like. If he’s got anyone in there, there’s a chance he’ll have a guard standing watch as well. I’ll go first and wait for you on the other side. Take your time. Take this and follow it when you’re ready. I’ll give a tug when I’m through.’
Syannis handed the end of a rope to Hain and waded out into the pool, carrying his sword and his armour. As the water got deeper, he splashed and spluttered and then took a deep breath and vanished, simply sinking beneath the surface.
‘You next, dark-skin,’ growled Hain.
He pushed the rope into Berren’s hand. Berren took it, but stopped for a moment. A tunnel under the water? ‘Why me? Why not you?’
‘Because I don’t trust you not to run.’
The rope jerked. Berren took a deep breath and stepped into the pool. Cursed water was freezing, but at least it would wash the last of the shit off him. With one hand on the rope and the other clutching his sword and his leathers, he dived in.